button

plural buttons · alternative btn

1. businessA knob or disc that is passed through a loop or (buttonhole), serving as a fastener.First known use mid-13th c.

   April fastened the buttons of her overcoat to keep out the wind.

   2 more examples

   I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me. I look upon notoriety with the same indifference as on the buttons on a man's shirt-front, or the crest on his note-paper.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

   Rather should it be said that these ladies wore dress of military style, since there was nothing uniform about their outfits, one being in powder-blue with silver buttons and a forage-cap, the other in tan with gold buttons and the dinkiest of red-peaked kepis.

   1961, Xavier Herbert, Soldiers' Women, Netley, SA: Fontana Books, published 1978, page 88

2. A mechanical device designed to be pressed with a finger in order to open or close an electric circuit or to activate a mechanism.

   Pat pushed the button marked "shred" on the blender.

3. computingAn on-screen control that can be selected as an activator of an attached function.

   Click the button that looks like a house to return to your browser's home page.

4. USA badge worn on clothes, fixed with a pin through the fabric.

   The politician wore a bright yellow button with the slogan "Vote Smart" emblazoned on it.

5. biologyA bud.

   O queen Emilia, / Fresher than May, sweeter / Than her gold buttons on the boughs,

   c. 1613–1614, William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, The Two Noble Kinsmen, act 3, scene 1, lines 4–6

6. The calyx of an orange.

   Not well healed, or aggregating more than a circle 14 inch in diameter on a 200 size orange. More than a few adjacent to the "button" at the stem end or more than 6 scattered on other portions of the fruit.

   1969, Federal Register, volume 34, numbers 125-134, page 11315

7. The head of an unexpanded mushroom.
8. slangThe clitoris.
9. ball gamesThe center (bullseye) of the house.
10. fencingThe soft circular tip at the end of a foil.
11. card gamesA plastic disk used to represent the person in last position in a poker game; also dealer's button.
12. card gamesThe player who is last to act after the flop, turn and river, who possesses the button.
13. archaicA person who acts as a decoy.
14. A raised pavement marker to further indicate the presence of a pavement-marking painted stripe.
15. aeronauticsThe end of a runway.

    The second and slightly higher aircraft on the approach showed no reaction to this barrage of pyrotechnics and continued blissfully down toward the button of the runway.

    1999, Les Morrison, Of Luck and War, page 69

    1 more example

    In attempting to touch down on the button of the runway, he misjudged his altitude and struck a pile of rocks short of the runway. The right wheel was torn off and the gear leg bent backwards.

    1984, Synopses of Aircraft Accidents: Civil Aircraft in Canada, page 42

16. South AfricaslangA methaqualone tablet (used as a recreational drug).
17. A piece of wood or metal, usually flat and elongated, turning on a nail or screw, to fasten something, such as a door.
18. A globule of metal remaining on an assay cupel or in a crucible, after fusion.
19. A knob; a small ball; a small, roundish mass.
20. A small white blotch on a cat's coat.
21. UKarchaicA unit of length equal to ¹⁄₁₂ inch.
22. generally with theThe means for initiating a nuclear strike or similar cataclysmic occurrence.

    It's Christmas at ground zero / The button has been pressed / The radio / Just let us know / That this is not a test

    1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic, “Christmas at Ground Zero”, in Polka Party!

    1 more example

    Pandora's box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens, waiting, the season of the button, the penultimate migration, radioactive perfumes for the fashionably, for the terminally, insane.

    1984, “Fugazi”, in Fish (lyrics), Fugazi, performed by Marillion

23. artsThe oblate spheroidal mass of glass attaching a stem to either its bowl or foot.
24. artsIn an instrument of the violin family, the near-semicircular shape extending from the top of the back plate of the instrument, meeting the heel of the neck.
25. artsSynonym of endbutton, part of a violin-family instrument.

    Synonyms: endbutton, part of a violin-family instrument

26. artsSynonym of adjuster.

    Synonyms: adjuster

27. The least amount of care or interest; a whit or jot.

    As to that I did not care a button, but I had wanted to hear about Betty, and now her name was barely mentioned.

    1922, Van Tassel Sutphen, In Jeopardy

    1 more example

    'She has heard from us this morning,' said Mr. Gamble, grinning on his watch, 'and she knows all by this time, and 'tisn't a button to her.'

    1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard

28. broadcastingThe punchy or suspenseful line of dialogue that concludes a scene.

    1 more example

    One thing you definitely don't want to do is write past the button. For example, a scene's natural button might run something like this: TONY: That kind of talk is exactly what I'm talking about. Whereas an example of writing past the button would sound something like this: TONY: That kind of talk is exactly what I'm talking about. CARMELLA: Okay. 'Bye. TONY: Bye.

    2006, David Kukoff, Vault Guide to Television Writing Careers, page 77

    Synonyms: blow

29. comedyThe final joke at the end of a comedic act (such as a sketch, set, or scene).

    Scenes usually go out on a laugh line, a stinger or a button. End your script with a twist!

    2002 November 8, Jean Ann Wright, “Animation Comedy and Gag Writing”, in Animation World Network

    2 more examples

    With our show, one thing we wanted to do was give our best effort to always put a button on the scene.

    2014 June 18, Daniel Schindel, “3 Comedy Sketches that Changed Key and Peele's Lives”, in Los Angeles Magazine

    Is there a best way to end a comedy sketch? Endings — or outs, or buttons as writers call them — are notoriously difficult to nail. The ideal ending needs to be satisfying and surprising while staying true to the comedic game that preceded it.

    2016 July 12, Jessica Goldstein, “How to best end a comedy sketch? It’s hard to go wrong with gruesome death”, in The Washington Post

30. slangA button man; a professional assassin.

    FREDO: Mikey, why would they ever hit poor old Frankie Five-Angels? I loved that ole sonuvabitch. I remember when he was just a 'button,' when we were kids.

    1973, Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather Part II (screenplay, second draft)

31. The final segment of a rattlesnake's rattle.

    Hardly a rattler is ever reported in the newspapers unless it is stated to have had "blank rattles and a button". But here button usually means the terminal lobe of the last rattle, even though the string may not be complete, the true button and additional rattles having been lost.

    1936, Laurence Monroe Klauber, A Statistical Study of the Rattlesnakes, page 26

32. Southern USdatedA clove (of garlic).
33. biologyPedicle; the attachment point for antlers in cervids.

present singular third person buttons · participle present buttoning · participle past buttoned · past buttoned · alternative btn

1. transitiveTo fasten with a button.First known use late 14th c.

   He was a tall, fat, long-bodied man, buttoned up to the throat in a tight green coat.

   1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 50, in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC

2. intransitiveTo be fastened by a button or buttons.

   The coat will not button.

3. informalTo stop talking.

plural Buttons

1. countableA surname originating as an occupation for a maker or seller of buttons.
2. countableuncountableA township in Ford County, Illinois, United States.

1. alternativeAlternative form of Buton (“Indonesian island”).